“Semi-Pro” comes out today. Could be funny. Anything with Will Ferrell is at least sorta funny. He could read my grocery list funny.

So with my mind on basketball movies (“Eddie”! “Celtic Pride”! “The Air Up There”!) I have to say this: even if “Semi-Pro” is Ferrell’s best work, it still won’t challenge the greatest basketball movie of all-time, (wait for it…) “Hoosiers.”

It’s cinema gold. Gene Hackman is the best. I’d play for him if he coached curling.

The story-line: small-town high school team gets an outsider for a coach. Small town doesn’t like change. New coach tries to change things up. But, magically, everything comes together, and a school with less than 100 students makes it to the title game against the defending champs from a school of 1,000s.

“Hoosiers” is great for so many reasons.

It’s a pure sports movie. You connect with it. You become a surrogate fan and teammate of the Hickory Huskers. And there’s nothing unrealistic about the movie (I hate sports movies that you watch and say: “That would never happen like that.”)

The movie tugs on your heart-strings (I still get teary eyed when Dennis Hopper calls for the picket fence — but don’t tell anyone).

The soundtrack is inspiring (it’s on my i-pod).

And there are so many great lines:

“My team’s on the floor.”

“Now, boys, don’t get caught watchin’ the paint dry.”

“But, there’s just one thing… I play, Coach stays. He goes, I go.”

“What’s gotten into you?”
“The Lord! I can feel His strength!”
“Well, keep His strength in the dribble alright?”

“If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we’re gonna be winners.”

“And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen.”

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.